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Surgeon Argues For Annual Mammograms Beginning At Age 40.

Medscape (5/8, Jenkins, Subscription Publication) reports on a presentation by Elisa Port, MD, chief of breast surgery at Mount Sinai Hospital and director of the Dubin Breast Center, New York City, NY, at the annual meeting of the American Society of Breast Surgeons. Port said, “I worry that doing fewer mammograms now is being pennywise and pound foolish.” Port added, “Not doing mammograms because of cost or fear of false-positives is a decision that is likely to blow up later when women face more extensive therapy, including surgery and chemotherapy.” Port favors annual mammograms beginning at age 40. She buttressed her argument with “data from a single-center retrospective study of more than 1000 women with breast cancer” finding that “screening mammography within 24 months of diagnosis was associated with smaller tumors overall and a lower likelihood of mastectomy, chemotherapy, or axillary node dissection compared with screening performed at an interval of 25 months or longer, or not at all.”